1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of methods and systems for providing computer-supported transactions with the use of a mobile phone, and particularly to the field of enabling universal communication between a telephone device, different transaction devices and different servers, including bank servers, for carrying out certain transactions, considering all the security requirements against unauthorized access to an individual bank account or other user accounts.
2. Description of the Related Art
Carrying out cashless transactions is in modern life an everyday activity. Various kinds of credit and debit cards, based on different principles of data storage and data exchange with the payment terminals, such as magnetic record, contact interface and contactless interface (the technology of contactless smart cards) are available to users. A user can thus often find a wide range of various payment cards in his/her wallet. If we add other transaction cards, such as bonus and loyalty cards, which many shops offer to their loyal customers, and access control cards, which many employers provide for their employees, the number of cards a user must handle, store and carry gets to a level, where they are difficult to manage.
The use of a mobile phone as a universal, handy and safe transaction instrument is already recognized in the art. The existent solution is however based on the transfer of sound-modulated data directly through the speech channel of the operator's mobile network during the established phone call between the caller (customer) and callee (transaction processing center). However, such phone call (in some cases mobile transactions can last very long, up to cca. 15 seconds or even more) is usually not always inexpensive, thus, reducing the competitive advantage of mobile phone based transaction, and thus, making the underlying business model not interesting for many mobile phone users and potential merchants.
Furthermore, the existing mobile transaction systems need special equipment, which also makes their implementation costly.
Therefore, there is a need for a new mobile transaction system, which exploits the technical capacities, including early media capacities, of existent networks, to complete a transaction without establishing a phone call. Such a system would be economically attractive to mobile phone users and merchants.